Monday, October 15, 2012

The One Thing

Happy Monday! It's time for my 'The One Thing' post, this time with a link-up, since some of my readers and friends wanted to participate. So write your own posts, link back here, and use the link-up feature at the bottom of this post!

{Don't forget to link to specific posts, not just your home page.}

Inspired by Mark Twain, the One Thing series is all about making life manageable by taking on one thing a day, one project or task or errand outside of the daily essentials. This is my way of avoiding my usual pitfalls of making extensive to-do lists, starting lots of projects, getting overwhelmed, and not finishing anything.

{Based on many of your comments, I feel better knowing I'm not the only one with this problem.}

To keep myself accountable to my One Thing resolution, I report back here on Mondays with my little accomplishments from the previous week... and invite you to join me.

Last week, by following my One Thing a Day plan, here are a few of the things I accomplished:

I dug up a wilted and floppy clump of day lilies from a small circular bed in the front yard. They had been there since we moved in, and while I like day lilies, they're all over the front yard and I wanted to use this particular space for something else.

{Digging up day lilies, by the way, is a huge pain. I'm pretty sure they'll still be sprouting up again next spring even though I tried to be very thorough... so I imagine it'll be an ongoing project to really rid the space of them.}

Once I had dug up the lilies, into the ground went chrysanthemums I picked up at a nearby plant nursery.

While I did this gardening, Nell sat outside with me. She really enjoys being outdoors!

Then, I also spruced up our hanging baskets with some purple asters, since the pansies and violas of summer were long gone.

I added a mum on the doorstep to go alongside a couple of pumpkins, and I think the front yard looks considerably better now.

And I made an autumnal garland for the mantel, using styrofoam gourds I already had on hand (I had intended to do this project last fall, hah!), jute twine, and Nathan's drill.

I got the idea for this garland from Kimba at A Soft Place to Land. I had wanted to use brown jute twine, but the place I was shopping only had green, and when you have a baby with you and limited time to accomplish your errands... well, let's just say I wasn't going to go searching all over town for the brown stuff. Oh well.

My favorite part of doing this project was undoubtedly the way I was able to emasculate Nathan's drill as I worked on it, saying things like, "This drill is just perfect for doing a little craft project, honey!" He was wincing; I was laughing. Fun.

Oh, and another of my One Thing daily projects -- I wanted something new and different here on the blog too, so I made a new blog header.

But the most important of the things I did last week? I kept Nell and myself healthy despite the fact that Nathan was running a temperature of over 103! Phew! We're probably not totally out of the woods yet, but I'm feeling pretty good about our chances at this point.

3 comments:

Thanks for reading my post on Friday! I'm realizing that what started out as a "little things" post in my head turned out more like a "here's what I've done" post. A thought for you... Maybe "little things" on Monday when we could all use a positive thought to start the week, and a "one thing" post on Friday, when it's easier to reflect on what was accomplished in the week? Either way, I think both are great themes!

Hi Susan -- thanks for the idea! I had been thinking that I like reflecting on the positive things from my week on Fridays, and then re-motivating myself on Mondays to keep trying to be productive with one thing a day... but your comment makes sense, too! I'll ponder it. :)

So last week I really had the best of intentions to actually participate in these themes you are doing - I really like them and I think they are a great idea. But trying to remember to do them and trying to think what to write? Yeah, that just didn't happen. I will try to keep it more in mind this week... Thanks for the encouragement to reflect a bit!

And I really like that pumpkin garland - and I love the part about emasculating the drill.